-by Isita Ghanta
“Chinese people are all moving here. We need to stop letting every helpless tramp in.” The woman whispered to her husband, glaring at Sakura. Sakura Yamamoto wanted to close her laptop and use it to bang the woman’s head but instead quickly vacated her seat in the café and walked home.
She lived in a hostel that held parachute students like herself, students who were sent to live abroad in high school so they could skip the college entrance exams. Sakura had moved a year prior expecting school to be similar to the high school movies she had seen but had been quickly disappointed.
Her first day had gone as following. She had walked into class and encountered a teacher who refused to believe she could speak English. During history, everyone stared at her as another student droned about her presentation about WW2. In the end, her fellow Japanese hostel mates and a few nice locals had welcomed her with open arms, making the gloom of school more bearable.
“Sakura, your mom sent a package for you. Airi took it up.”
Sakura thanked the front desk man and ran up. Her room mate, Airi, sat in a mess of papers, all but crying over them. She pointed at the box at box beside her bed and went back to being deplorable over her schoolwork.
Before moving to Canada, Sakura’s days were painted with the strokes of tradition, her path seemingly predetermined by the expectations of her family and society. But beneath the facade of conformity, a yearning for self-discovery pulsed within her.
Upon hearing of the opportunity to leave the dull life she was living behind, Sakura begged her parents to allow her to attend the international student program. She waved goodbye to her friends, fencing lessons, tayoki trips and family.
“Chemistry or literature?” Sakura asked stabbing the tape of the package with scissors.
“Literature. Why should I care about deciphering what Ophelia feels in this bit? I mean, it is a made-up story, to force me into this horridity-”
Sakura continues opening her package, letting Airi ramble on.
“This is weird. My mom sent a bunch of papers in the mail.” Sakura shows it to Airi.
She sits on the edge of her bed slowly opening the paper. Her stomach falls after reading the content. She stares at the paper.
Airi moves to sit beside her, silently reading over her shoulder.
“I have taken it upon myself to clean scum like you who bring the virus to us. Mark your last days, Sakura Yamamoto.”
Airi frantically checked the other papers, only to discover they all say the same thing. Sakura sat frozen, rereading the content over and over again.
“We need to report this.”
Things happened as a blur for the next week for Sakura. Other Parachute students had heard of what happened. The story spread from them to the school. It spread from the school to the community. Her once dreadful school day became reassurances from kids she never met and people including her into the western world.
Two months later, Sakura received the same package. It read the same thing. But this time, she didn’t mentally breakdown. She complained to the hostel and remined herself that she wasn’t as alone in this country as she thought.
Perhaps when this anonymous killer did come, nobody would rescue her. They might cry for a few days and forget her. But to her the transition from utter silence to “it’s going to be ok” meant something. She wondered if she was going mad.
“Sakura! Someone wants to talk to you.” Airi took her to the hallways where a Puerto Rican lady sat with her legs crossed.
“We will be right down the hallway. Shout out if you need help or anything, ok?” Airi gave her a meaningful look before going away.
The woman and Sakura sat in silence for a while. Then the woman spoke.
“My daughter told me about your situation. I am extremely sorry you have to go through this.”
Sakura stared as the woman continued.
“While I may not have ever received hate mail, I have seen enough things in our community to know its not as inclusive as one would hope. I am a journalist. And I would like to hear about your story.”
And that was the first time I ever heard Sakura speak. She has grown since then, helping fellow international students, and is preparing to go to the university of Toronto as a Psychology major in the fall. The man who threatened her was caught in the a few months back for attempting murder of another international student.
Stories like this are overlooked. Students like Sakura are told to suck it up and deal with it as long as they don’t get hurt.
“How do you feel?” I asked her approximately a year after the first package. Sakura looked different now. The slouch in her back that she used to hide her height in was gone. Her hair shone in a loud red. Her face remained its usual smiley self.
“I am good. I wanted to show you these.”
She flipped the camera to show me blooming cherry blossom trees.
“It’s the season of the bloom for the Sakura. Thought you would want to see it.”
I smiled at Sakura, for she, just like the trees she was named after, faced all hardships and bloomed to show her true beauty.